


She feels everything, she can't not.

by writersstareoutwindows



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Order 66, post-season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 01:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6065833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writersstareoutwindows/pseuds/writersstareoutwindows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahsoka Tano is far away from the Jedi by the time Order 66 is executed. But that doesn't mean she can't feel everything falling apart. Short one-shot as Ahsoka senses the Jedi breaking down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She feels everything, she can't not.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Firefly episode "Ariel"

She was on the bridge when it happened. It was a small ship, the kind one person could manage alone. She was nearing the end of her course, and she was very tired. She didn’t notice the cold at first, since it was something she’d just gotten used to. Space was a very cold place to be, on your own.

The whirring engine. The glow of hyperspace. The ache in her neck. She would remember it all, later.

An icicle of Force shot through her chest and suddenly the cold overwhelmed her. It was like–nothing she’d felt before. She could feel something through the Force that she didn’t understand, but it was heavy and dark and made her head bow.

She was wrong; she had felt this before. When Kalifa was shot in her arms. When Obi-Wan let them believe he died. When she couldn’t save Steela. When she saw Barriss at the trial.

The feeling that overwhelmed her was like that, only heavier. They had never trained her to handle this. Ahsoka struggled to push herself upright.

The wave of Force had only raw _pain_. It was the feeling of wanting to scream: an awful energy rattled around in her chest and built until she could hardly hold it. It was…inexplicable. She focused her mind to push through the pain and reach out, seeking a source.

The light of the Force seemed to go dark. She was in deep space and did not expect to sense much life, but she had not expected to sense so much death. She could feel it in her own body. Light years away from home, and she could feel it dying.

Ahsoka made herself stand. She made herself set the ship to autopilot. The feeling was only getting worse; she swayed on her feet. What was happening? Her heart ached for home. They had not trained her to understand this. She didn’t know what was happening to her.

Was she dying? It felt like it. She couldn’t–breathe–with this awful–weight–in her chest.

Ahsoka pushed a shield around her mind. It was cobbled from long, lonely nights of stress and fear. She pictured it like a green bubble against the blue Force that surrounded her. She felt a little warmer.

She walked on shaking legs to her quarters, counting on her shield just to keep her upright. But as soon as her door closed, the shield cracked. The weight was too much for it to bear. The Force flung a memory between her eyes, _the Council, not a Jedi, no trust, alone, betrayed_. She shoved the memory down, but the feeling stayed. It seeped through her shield from every side. Fear. Betrayal.

Ahsoka found that she was crying. Once she realized it, she couldn’t stop. Her shield shook to pieces as she broke down in heaving sobs. She didn’t know what was happening, and there was no one to explain it to her. She felt, somehow, more alone than she ever had during her trial.

She found her way to the bed and collapsed. Her blanket had little warmth to offer; there was ice in her very bones. The initial pain had been replaced by a weight that kept growing and settling on top of her. She could sense little pinpricks across the galaxy: those sudden absences that left the Force colder.

Into her mind came again the image of Barriss Offee. She couldn’t understand it. There was some connection between Ahsoka’s feelings at the trial and what she felt now. The hurt, the betrayal. She sensed that something very close to her had broken, but she didn’t understand what.

Ahsoka let herself cry and cry while the Force held her in some place between living and dying. She guessed she was not, in fact, dying, but that somewhere someone was. Perhaps many people, people she had known. Perhaps it was a great battle, and the war would finally end.

Ahsoka lay in that space, and listened to the quiet screaming, and cried.


End file.
